Blog

Collaboration and a Strip Club

Thank you for having me on your blog today, Delilah!

Recently, I’d been asked to join a brand new blog, along with nine other authors. Being a relative newbie to the industry, I was honored by the request and jumped at the chance to be a part of this talented group. This was the opportunity to interact and collaborate with other writers that I’d been looking for.

The idea of writing an anthology started with a chain of e-mails that was mostly kidding around. The discussion started with a note about Valentine’s Day and progressed to the topic of St. Patrick’s Day. Of course (we are romance writers, after all), the discussion then shifted to a sexy leprechaun and the “treasure” at the end of his rainbow, to which the response was “Lucky Charms!” It was mentioned that Lucky’s would make a great name for a strip club…with its strippers called Lucky’s Charms. Then, someone said, “Hey! We should write that!”

See, folks? This is one way plot bunnies are born. Collaboration, even when unintended, can be magical.

After the initial shock of agreeing to write an anthology wore off, we got to work. With four weeks to go until St. Patrick’s Day, the clock was ticking. Unlike other anthologies, our stories are connected to each other through common theme. All of the stories are set in or around Lucky’s Bar and Strip Club. We were able to quickly hash out the details and interworkings of the club. Our resident attorney checked into the laws that govern strip clubs in NYC. Not that some of our guys didn’t (accidentally) break them, but it’s always good to know the rules.

We utilized Dropbox as a way to share documents. This is an invaluable tool for long-distance collaboration. It gave us a central location to store things such as marketing materials and cover art. It also helped to keep things on track as we went through the editing process. And it reduced the number of “Lucky’s Charms” titled emails in my inbox. 🙂

Have you ever wondered how things can come together so perfectly, despite writers block, time constraints, surgeries, illnesses and general life stuff? Because all of these things occurred during the process of creating Lucky’s Charms.

Synergy.

We came together as women. As writers, sisters, and friends. We worked together and got the job done. Through collaboration, we’ve created a blog and an anthology I am very proud to be a part of. I can’t wait until we do this again!

A Love, Lust and Laptops Publication:

From the ladies of Love, Lust and Laptops comes a special anthology filled with sexy tales of the men and women of Lucky’s Bar and Strip Club.

Anything could happen at Lucky’s Bar and Strip Club. Underneath the neon lights, the loud music, and the tear-away costumes, new lovers meet for the first time and old flames ignite anew. Shifters claim their mates, and leprechauns pay unusual gambling debts. Undercover operative solving crime? Advertising executive seducing the boss? All business as usual at Lucky O’Reilly’s.
Have you gotten lucky tonight?

Padraig “Lucky” O’Reilly let out a contented sigh as he lifted the bottle of Irish whiskey and poured himself a generous slug. Life could be a lot worse. He shifted slightly on his stool and glanced at the old photo hanging on the wall behind the bar. Back in the day, he’d sported a fine head of red hair, rippling abs, and had a bevy of beautiful women willing to do his bidding.

So he might not be able to slip into his thong anymore, his dick was harder to find with his beer gut in the way, and what was left of his hair was mostly grey, but he was the master of all he surveyed.

Lucky’s was one of New York’s finest male strip joints.

He’d built it up from nothing to become one of the must-visit clubs in the U.S. for traveling dance troupes. Finding a woman and settling down had never been a priority in his life, although he would never regret fathering his firecracker daughters.

Lucky groaned softly and ran his fingers over Molly’s soft brown hair. She stood up and wiped the back of her hand across her lips. “You want me to do anything else for ya, Lucky?”

He drained his glass and placed it on the bar top. Molly stood, chewing her bottom lip, as he stowed his cock and zipped up. “No, that was good. You run along.”

She dropped a kiss on his cheek, and he watched her sashay across the empty room and disappear out the door. Maybe he’d make an honest woman of her one day.

The door she’d wandered through opened and a young man with a head covered in dark brown stubble stepped inside. “I’m looking for Lucky O’Reilly. Seamus said you might be hiring?”

Lucky grinned and got to his feet. Fresh blood. Molly could wait for her Mr. Right. Why would he want to settle for ground beef when there was a whole sexual smorgasbord on offer?

Besides, the Australians were kicking their tour off tomorrow, and St Patrick’s Day was only a week away. He had a feeling life was about to get far too hectic to worry about how much longer Molly would give him head without him making more of a commitment than unzipping his pants.

Lucky crossed the room and held out his hand. “So, you think you’ve got what it takes to be one of Lucky’s Charms?”

Parker Kincade is an award-winning erotic romance author and has been writing since she was a little girl. Her first novel, One Night Stand, won the category of Best Erotic Romance in the Celtic Hearts Romance Writers Golden Claddagh contest and was named finalist in the Romance Writers of America/Passionate Ink Stroke of Midnight contest.

Parker lives in the southern United States with her husband, children and beloved boxer sidekick. She loves reading, playing golf, spending time with her family and friends, ice cream from the ice cream truck, taking her dog to the park and watching old musicals.